Chapter 141 — Old Buffon's Origins
Years of Heartflutter · Page 174 of 214
The people Guo Jianchao once dealt with were at most officials and insiders—natural enough, for Wang Group was Songjiang's leading enterprise. But other companies had not been so willing to defer to Wang Group.
Now it was different. Guo Jianchao could plainly feel that his words carried far more weight with his business partners. Yes—everyone understood the position he now represented, and no one dared ignore him.
So Guo Jianchao was delighted. Being Yang Juehuan's dog was simply marvelous. And so what if he was a dog? Plenty of people wanted the role and could not get it. Watching those men bow and scrape before him, a sense of pride welled up in Guo Jianchao's heart.
He considered himself a formidable dog—a proud dog. He still did not fully grasp Yang Juehuan's true strength, but it did not matter; he had no regrets. After all, Bao Lin and Hou Lin, two of Yang Juehuan's subordinates, were formidable enough to serve as his own backing—so Yang Juehuan's strength must be all the more terrifying.
As for Sun Jie, Guo Jianchao had long since given up. He was the sort who knew which way the wind blew: if a thing could not be his, he would not fight for it—fighting for it could cost a man his life. He understood that much.
Recently Guo Jianchao had taken up with a girlfriend, a female student, passably good-looking. He planned to buy a house near her school. He was no longer young, his parents kept pressing him to settle down, and now that his career was flourishing, Guo Jianchao decided to marry first and have a child before thinking of anything else. In this day and age there were plenty of men keeping mistresses anyway; finding a few more women later would be no problem.
This girlfriend of his was the rather proud type, from a southern family with some connections. Guo Jianchao thought her acceptable enough, and took her to pick out a house near the school.
To his surprise, one phone call got him a twenty-percent discount from the developer. Guo Jianchao fairly floated on air, feeling himself to be a real power in Songjiang.
Just as he was basking in self-satisfaction, his girlfriend Song Ran suddenly called to say she had been struck while paying her money. Guo Jianchao flew into a rage at once—striking his girlfriend was striking his own face.
One phone call from Guo Jianchao brought several company security men—in truth, peripheral members of the underworld. The whole party tore off toward the Huasong Wenyuan sales office in a Benz van, fast and furious.
Guo Jianchao leaped from the car first. The guards at the gate tried to stop him, but Guo Jianchao's men shoved them aside. They were all guards, yet there was a world of difference between them.
The sales office guards were simply unemployed youths hired off the street, while Guo Jianchao's men were gangsters. Which was the fiercer was plain enough.
Yang Ce was sitting at his ease in Manager Liu's office, Chen Shutang on his lap, looking utterly relaxed. Suddenly the office door was kicked open and a man charged in, murder in his face: "Ranran, what happened to you?"
"Darling, you're finally here—that woman hit me." Song Ran raised a hand and pointed at Chen Shutang. "Those two bullied me."
"Who the hell—" Guo Jianchao got half the sentence out before the rest was swallowed hard. He had seen Chen Shutang, the woman who had struck Song Ran. He did not know who Chen Shutang was, but at this moment Chen Shutang was sitting in that man's lap—and that man was his master, Yang Ce.
Yang Ce lifted his head, glanced at Guo Jianchao, and said mildly, "So it's you."
"Boss—" Guo Jianchao nearly said it, but recalling Yang Yongjin's order to make his identity public, he checked himself at once: "Brother Yang, you're here too."
"Mm. I had my eye on a villa, but someone got there first." Yang Ce's face was expressionless. "We were going to let the matter drop, but that Miss Song wouldn't let it go—she kept mocking and sneering. By the way, what is she to you?"